{"id":162,"date":"2024-09-11T12:00:29","date_gmt":"2024-09-11T11:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/changing-ourselves\/?p=162"},"modified":"2024-08-22T13:53:51","modified_gmt":"2024-08-22T12:53:51","slug":"questions-questions-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/changing-ourselves\/2024\/09\/11\/questions-questions-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"Questions, questions, questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

My children have grown up and left home. They live a long way away, as in different time zones. This means that even before the pandemic we\u2019ve had the family ritual of the weekly skype call.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is where I need to confess that for the longest time I have hated these calls.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Not because I don\u2019t love my family \u2013 I do. But because of the way that the conversation progresses. One family member, and I won\u2019t say who on personal security grounds\u2026 they may come to read this blog\u2026 tends to dominate the conversation.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now I don\u2019t mind that too much. Being an introvert, I am quite content to sit back.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

No, the problem lies in their questioning style. I sit there and watch the other family members being peppered with a series of closed questions. When I am at my least resilient, my mind drifts to old war films where the bright light is shone into the eyes of the main protagonist, who is told that \u201cwe have ways of making you talk!\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This experience has made me reflect on questions - their purpose and how they can operate in work, as well as at home.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I love an open question. \u201cHow\u201d, \u201cwhat\u201d, \u201cwhere\u201d, \u201cwhen\u201d create a space for the other person to express themselves in their own terms. They offer me insights that I might otherwise not have found, and they build relationships.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I try and avoid \u201cwhy\u201d. It can be quite challenging, sometimes even feeling like an attack, interpreted as getting the other person to justify themselves.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Closed questions, those that come back with \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno\u201d or some very short response, tend not to be so much fun. They are efficient, though, when you really need to get the key information. I\u2019ve noticed that quite a few of my clinical acquaintances use these questions. I wonder if it is because they need to drill down quickly to a diagnosis in the space of a 5-to-7-minute appointment.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

These closed questions can be very powerful under those sorts of circumstances.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So now I am trying to take time to notice the questions I\u2019m using and when. Think about what I am trying to achieve in the conversation and if my questions served those purposes well.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There are some great resources in the Development Toolkit on this topic if you want to consider it more deeply. This article is a good place to start: <\/span>University of Bath Development Toolkit | Effective Questioning Skills (goodpractice.net)<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Why not experiment with different questioning styles and see what happens?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And now, my next challenge is to have a confident conversation with my \u201cclosed question\u201d family member. Happily, there is an in-person workshop in the People Management Curriculum for that as well\u2026<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ed Webster,<\/span><\/a> Deputy Director of Workforce Development, Department of Human Resources.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My children have grown up and left home. They live a long way away, as in different time zones. This means that even before the pandemic we\u2019ve had the family ritual of the weekly skype call.\u00a0 This is where I...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1725,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-edward-webster"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/changing-ourselves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/changing-ourselves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/changing-ourselves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/changing-ourselves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1725"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/changing-ourselves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/changing-ourselves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/changing-ourselves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/changing-ourselves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/changing-ourselves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}